Chapter XXIX A March and Another Reunion
The march down the canyon of the Xilcala was rapid, and on the second day they were near its debouchment into the valley of the Maranon, close to the great national highway leading to Cuzco. After this they proceeded with the utmost circumspection. By the end of the fifth day they had passed Lake Chinchaycocha and halted at Carhuacaya, in the valley of the Xauxa. It was a hamlet of two dozen houses, regularly laid out and with the usual campata, or square, on which stood the residence of the curaca, where the two Viracochas were received for the night. Like many another village they passed, this had suffered severely at the hands of the ravaging Cañares who had followed Pizarro’s march, and from Spaniards on their way to Cuzco, for recruits were already flowing in; but Pedro had stopped there on his way to Xilcala, and his reappearance was welcome.
On the following morning the party encountered an interruption wholly deranging their plans. Cristoval and Pedro were preparing for the journey when the curaca entered, showing some embarrassment. He greeted them cordially, but advised them not to leave that day. In fact, it would be impossible. The roads were occupied. The town—it was distressing—was surrounded by the troops of the Inca! Pedro whistled.
“By the fighting San Miguel!” exploded Cristoval, in Spanish. “We are prisoners, Pedro! What sayst thou to that?”
Pedro sat down. “Why, stew me!—like the ancient Roman soldier who was hit in the belly by a stone from a catapult, I have very little to say.”
“Viracochas,” said the curaca, earnestly, “I pray you have no uneasiness. The General Matopo commanding shall be informed of your rescue of the Ñusta Rava, Viracocha Cristoval, of which Markumi hath told me. That service will insure you against any danger soever.”
“Danger! Then we might be in danger, is it so, Curaca? Are these troops marching against the Viracochas?”
“You will readily understand, Viracocha Cristoval, it is not permitted me to know.”
Cristoval resumed his arming. “Well, it might be worse. If Pizarro had us pent in this fashion it would be a short shrift for me, Pedro, and belike, would call for some painful lying from thee to explain thine indiscretion in choice of company. But let us step out and see what is to be seen.”
They found several Xilcalans at the outer door, watching a battalion just entering the square. The two Spaniards halted, struck by its martial appearance as it massed in the plaza.
An officer of middle age wearing a noble’s ear ornaments was followed by a group of twenty or more, many with the same insignia, and all brilliant in the uniform of the Conibos, a northern tribe from the valley of the Huallaga. Beside the officer was the curaca, talking earnestly. The party turned aside from the direct line of march to permit the passage of their column, and halted. The curaca approached to summon the Spaniards.
The commander eyed the two mail-clad figures with interest, but the sight of Pedro’s wooden leg required all his self-possession to avoid a display of astonishment. His salutation was not unfriendly, but the Spaniards were aware that they were prisoners. “Viracochas,” said he, after the curaca had presented them, “it seemeth an ill return for our indebtedness, of which the curaca informeth me, but it is necessary that you accompany us. I assure you that one who hath befriended the Ñusta Rava need fear nothing more than inconvenience. Were it in my discretion I would not impose even that; but I am responsible for the secrecy of the movement of my troops and you will understand the necessity which compelleth me. In order, however, to avoid undue restraint, I will accept your words that you make no effort to escape.”
“Thou mayst depend upon us, my lord,” said Cristoval. “There is, however, one request. I have an escort of Xilcalans whom I count as friends. Will my lord permit that they accompany me?”
“Gladly,” said the general, “if they so choose. We shall meet to-night, Viracochas. May the Sun guard you!”
He moved off with his officers, leaving one to follow with the two captives, and they hastened to saddle. Taking leave of the curaca, they joined the waiting officer and, followed by the Xilcalans, fell into an interval between battalions.
The command went into bivouac late at night, and Matopo sent for his prisoners to join him at supper. Several subordinate officers shared the meal, and to them and to the old noble it was an incident, for these were the first they had seen of the Viracochas. Matopo soon became assured of Cristoval’s sympathy with the cause of Rava’s people, though the cavalier avoided direct expression, merely relating, at the general’s request, the details of his association with Atahualpa and the subsequent enmity of Pizarro. When he remembered and drew forth the Inca’s last gift, the fringe from the royal llautu, the effect was magical. The officers bent before it with reverence little less than the actual presence of the monarch would have inspired, and Cristoval found himself elevated to a dignity as great as it was unexpected. The half-forgotten trifle was a talisman.
“Viracocha Cristoval,” said Matopo, gravely, as the cavalier replaced the potent cord, “thou bearest a warrant from the Inca. No man in Tavantinsuyu will withhold from it his recognition. It is a rare credential, and demandeth the confidence in its possessor reposed in him by the Inca himself. The Inca Atahualpa won his throne by arms, but he was the Inca. Thou hadst done well to show me the fringe this morning, but I will make what reparation is possible. Thou ’rt free, Viracocha.”
This result was so unforeseen that Cristoval failed to comprehend the change in his situation, and the general repeated: “Thou ’rt free, Viracocha Cristoval, and I have only to ask that I be allowed to make thee amends.”
“I thank thee, General Matopo. There hath been no inconvenience, for, as I have said, we were journeying toward Cuzco. But—my comrade?”
Matopo shook his head. “Mine authority can go no farther. I shall be compelled to retain him.”
“Then with thy leave we will remain together.”
Matopo’s surprise was as evident as his relief. His relief was equal to his uneasiness, what there was of it, lest the secret movement of his troops might be imperilled by the Viracocha’s liberation. “No need to ask my leave,” he replied, quickly; “but you will go as my guests, and I believe I can promise that he will not be long deprived of his liberty.”
Two weeks later the column approached the village of Abancay, where it would cross the river Apurimac. Cristoval and Pedro were walking with Matopo at the head of the main body, leading their steeds. As they neared the village they could see that it was occupied by the advance guard. As they descended into the plain a soldier came at top speed to announce that there were two Viracochas in the village, apparently not soldiers, and that there was some difficulty in securing them.
“Shall we ride forward, my Lord Matopo?” asked Cristoval.
“It would be well,” replied the general, “else the Viracochas may lose their lives in resisting.”
The two Spaniards were off at a gallop. The soldiers scattered before them, and they drew rein at the square. At the sight of the two Viracochas Pedro raised a shout:—
“The señora, by the infernal cook of cooks!—and Father Tendilla!”
The square was full of excited soldiers, leaving a swaying ring in the middle, occupied by the lady and the priest mounted on mules. The father had the reins of her steed, which was facing his own, plunging, rearing, and kicking incredibly at the surrounding line of Conibos who repelled it with their javelins. Its rider, clinging frantically to her pommel with one hand, half-blinded by her sombrero which had been jolted over her eyes, fitfully whirled her battle-axe with the other in fruitless efforts to reach the helmeted heads. She was red-faced, shaken, and storming. The poor priest, hatless and nearly unseated by every plunge of his companion’s mule, tugged desperately at the reins, while half-a-dozen officers circled about, dodging the heels of the frenzied animal, and entirely helpless before a situation transcending their wildest dreams.
“Brava, Bolio! Brava, Bolio!” roared Pedro, pushing forward. “Strike for Spain! Cristo y San Miguel! Strike for Spain! Bravamente!”
At the familiar voice the axe ceased to whirl, and between plunges the señora tilted back her sombrero. “Pedro!” she shouted wildly, then gave attention to retaining her seat, while the mule delivered another succession of kicks. Cristoval motioned the soldiers back as he spurred into the ring. Pedro rode up, slipped his hand along the reins of her steed, seized them close to the bit, and stopped the plunging. Cristoval assisted the flustered lady to the ground, too breathless to speak. He quieted the blowing mule while Pedro and Father Tendilla dismounted. The former hastened to the agitated señora, and at last she was able to gasp:—
“Pedro—on my soul!—hast dropped from heaven?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Pedro, surveying her with concern. “I’m crippled enough as ’t is. But thou ’rt unhurt?”
“Oh, these heathens!” panted the señora.
“I’ve known Christians who were worse,” said Pedro. “But, art sound and whole?”
“If I could but have reached one of them! But, blessed name! how comest thou here, Pedro?”
“Prisoner of war—like thyself. Art uninjured?”
“Like myself!” snorted the lady. “Who hath made me a prisoner of war? Prisoner of fiddle-de-dee! Drum-sticks!” She glared vindictively at the wondering soldiery. “Let one of them bite his tongue at me!”
“Bueno! There are only five thousand,” remarked Pedro. “But tell me, what dost thou here?”
“Oh, Pedro, I am going to Cuzco to see that angel of a girl! The father took it in mind to go, so I came with him—but such a time! He hath been as much care as a baby.”
“Calm yourself, my dear Señora.”
The señora sniffed scornfully. “Is that Peralta? I scarce knew him without his beard. He seemeth friendly enough with these fripperied Indians. He might be in better company—and so mightst thou, Pedro. ’T is little credit to you both.”
“We are prisoners, Señora.”
“Prisoners, forsooth! Well, if I were a man! But thou ’rt too good-natured, Pedro, for thine own good. And thou ’rt a love to rescue me,” she added, tenderly.
Pedro stepped back a pace and looked uneasily about. “Nay, Señora Bolio,” he said, hastily, “it was not I. It was Peralta. Wait. I’ll call him.”
“Oh, thou’rt so modest, Pedro! I tell thee, it was thou! But hold! God ha’ mercy! I had almost forgotten to tell thee. Thou ’rt undone! They have entered thy lodging in Xauxa, broken into thy chests, and taken thy belongings.”
“Furies and devils!” exclaimed the cook, sharply. “Who have?”
“Those runnion pikemen from the fortress.”
At once flashed over him the use he had planned to make of his savings in aiding Cristoval to escape. He spun around once on his peg and swore with such violence that the cavalier and Father Tendilla hurried up.
“My son, my son!” cried the priest, placing a hand upon his shoulder. “Thy tongue is imperilling thy soul.”
“Name of a saint, Pedro! What hath happened?” demanded Cristoval, anxiously.
“Happened!” shouted Pedro. “Scurviness hath happened. Thievery hath happened. Sack, plunder, housebreaking, and depredation have happened. Those rakehells of the infantry have robbed me. Oh, hoop me with hoops lest I burst before I’ve killed a pikeman!”
He ceased abruptly and went to his mule, leaving the señora to explain. She did so with brevity and emphasis, and Cristoval turned to the priest in disgust: “We’ve brought a mangy pack, Father Tendilla, to set loose upon these hapless people. They turn to robbing one another before they’ve done robbing the country.” The father shook his head sadly, but made no reply.
The advance guard moved on, and Matopo passed with his officers, casting a curious glance at the señora as he bowed. She responded with a haughty inclination and compressed her lips. It required all the persuasive eloquence of her three countrymen to induce her to mount and enter the column; but finding separation from Pedro the alternative, she at last consented, declaring vigorously that the barbarian who undertook to make a prisoner of her would repent his insolence and remember the circumstance. She swung into her saddle, disdaining assistance, and they were soon on the march.
Now Cristoval’s good heart was warmed by later news of Rava. He rode with Father Tendilla, listening with eagerness to the tale of her sojourn at Xauxa, given with detail and sympathy by the kindly old priest, who was glowing in his eulogies of the gentle proselyte. The cavalier’s hundred repeated questions were patiently answered over and over, and before an hour Cristoval had unbosomed himself, candidly revealing his hope of escape with her from the country. The priest listened to the plan, and said:—
“Well, my son, it will be for the child a hazardous undertaking. However, it will be in the guidance of Heaven. I had thought the maiden might find refuge from her sorrows in a life of holiness, for which her spirit seemeth well adapted. If it be otherwise ordained, it would not beseem me to oppose, and I will do all in my power to further thy happiness and hers.”
“I thank you, father,” said Cristoval. “But do you know whether Rava is aware that I am living?”
“I know not. I have written to Father Valverde since I learned it from the youth whom thou didst send from Xilcala, but have had no reply. Cañares have been abroad, and communication uncertain. The messenger may not have passed them. I have come myself, therefore, thinking to bear the news, but it hath ended—thus,”—and he cast a look over the battalions.
“Doubtless we can send her word,” said Cristoval. “Matopo saith she is likely to be at Yucay, where the Incas have a castle. I think we may reach her, good father.”
“I pray it may be so, surely,” replied Tendilla.
That night the command encamped on the elevated plain of Curahuasi, awaiting the morrow to cross the Apurimac. Before daylight it was moving again, and shortly the head of the column was threading its way down the wall of the chasm whence rose the faint murmur of the torrent, thousands of feet below. The trail seemed to Cristoval a mere scratch on the cliff. At his elbow rose the rock-mass, so steep that scarcely a shrub found clinging-place, while almost beneath his stirrup the precipice dropped away to an abyss. The descent, at first moderate, became so rapid as it zig-zagged from point to point that every step threatened to plunge horse and rider headlong. Generations of wayfarers had worn the rock treacherously smooth, and he presently dismounted to lead his horse. The others followed his example, and he heard the señora whimpering to Pedro. Gingerly now he went, hugging closely to points which so crowded the path that his saddlebow was scraped by the overhanging wall. In places the descent was by steps hewn into the granite, down which his horse blundered perilously, menaced at every slip by a hideous fall into vacancy. Cristoval’s eyes were drawn to the brink in resistless fascination, and he crept along with shrinking soul. He heard Pedro muttering: “Martyred saints—and spirits damned! This is what cometh—of being a cook!”
They were hours descending, but the hours seemed days. At length the path lost itself in the blackness of a cavern-mouth. Cristoval found himself in a reverberating tunnel driven three hundred yards through living rock. Openings on the right admitted air and the growing thunder of the torrent. In the open again for another giddy, stumbling clamber down a hundred fathoms; and the bridge! Cristoval whispered a prayer. From a narrow shelf it swung out over the chasm in a long, sweeping curve to its anchorage on the farther side, a mere gossamer swaying in the breeze and vibrating fearfully beneath the soldiers’ tread. Cristoval quailed within his steel at its frailty. From a huge windlass on the platform beside him stretched three cables of four or five inches in thickness, forming the support for the narrow floor. Above and on either side was a smaller cable connected with the floor supports by ropes, and serving as guard-rails, though the security afforded was largely moral, the vertical spaces between the cords being large enough to admit of a fall through at any point.
As Cristoval looked out over the quivering one hundred and fifty feet of fragility, listening to the lugubrious creaking of the cables at their anchorage, his hardihood slowly oozed. The bridge was now clear for his passage. He swore a little in undertone, piously consigned himself to the Virgin’s keeping, and led off. His horse sniffed at the footway with deep-drawn breaths and long, tremulous expirations, but followed at his word. A stiff breeze was blowing up the canyon, swinging the structure rhythmically through an arc of six or eight feet, and Cristoval’s brain reeled as he glanced at the sinister, whirling rush of green and foam bellowing a hundred feet below. Steadying his eyes on a point ahead, he picked his way out into the air. An age in crossing, but at last he neared the end. Here his weight and that of the horse shifted the sag of the cables so that the last few feet were a steep ascent with scant foothold; but he scrambled up, and with a sigh of relief, stood on solid ground. He looked back. Father Tendilla was following, leading his mule and holding his hat in place, the wind tossing and tearing at his robe, and the cavalier turned giddy again as he watched the old priest’s slow advance over the narrow, swinging floor. Cristoval gave him a hand at the end, and fairly jerked him to safety on the shelf.
Pedro and the señora were to follow, and here occurred a pause. The lady balked. She seated herself on the windlass, swelling with negation.
“Cross that unholy thing of strings and straws, Pedro?” she exclaimed, indignantly. “Not if I were a spider! ’T is a device of the devil, and may the devil fly away with it, or roost upon it! It is no place for a Christian. I’ll go round, and that’s an end to ’t!”
“Go round!” retorted Pedro, impatiently. “Thou’lt march four hundred leagues to go around, Señora.”
“Then I’ll go back.”
“Impossible to go back. The trail is full.”
“Then I’ll sit here till ’tis empty.”
“Oh, the fiend, woman! Dost not see they cannot pass for our mules? The column is waiting.”
“Then let the column wait and twiddle its fingers! The column can wait till it turneth to a column of waiting mummies if it see fit, but I’ll not put foot to that bridge!”
Pedro stared at her helplessly. The way was blocked. Ocallo with his mule was behind them, and the narrow platform was full, the column at a standstill, its head at a safe distance from the heels of the rearmost animal. Somewhere, Matopo was storming, his voice rising above the roar of the stream, and echoing and reëchoing weirdly between the granite walls. Cristoval was hailing, and shortly began to swear. The lady tossed her head, and pulling up a spear of grass, began to chew its end. Pedro laughed with exasperation; opened his mouth, but finding no expletives to fit the situation, closed it again and grew excessively red. The soldiers in the rear began to murmur. Pedro contained himself with an effort, and began sadly:—
“Well, so it must be, Señora! Adiós! I shall remember thee. I shall think of thee with a pang. I shall see thee ever in my darkest moments, sitting dreary amid the lonely majesty of the eternal mountains on an uncushioned windlass, a spear of grass thine only sustenance, whilst tempest and avalanche thunder about thee throughout the drift of years. Adiós, Señora! Thou’lt be in my dreams, a silent, graceful, but resolute form, waiting in solitude, holding the brittle remnants of a pair of reins; at thy feet a shrunken, staring, decayed cadaver of a mule, giving voiceless, desiccated testimony of thine inflexibility. Adiós! Adiós! I go. Come, thou, my steadfast and faithful steed, we obey the pointed finger of destiny. Fata nos nolentes trahunt!”
Pedro turned away, and straining to produce a sob, fetched a hiccough, and led to the bridge. The lady, at first bewildered by his burst of gloomy eloquence, then touched by the profound melancholy with which it was delivered, melted from determination to tenderness. As he stepped upon the floor she rose, glanced about despairingly, and shouted:—
“Hold, Pedro, thou dear love of a man! I follow! Wait for me, thou poor thing—and the fiend take the bridge and its makers if it serve me not across!”
But at the terror of the swaying structure she faltered, and Pedro turned. “Nay, Señora!” he cried, in a voice of sad but gentle deprecation, and raising his hand, “’t is too much. I ask it not. Turn back.”
For answer she sat down, and in her desperation heedless of exposure of limb, began sliding down the steep incline, clutching and moaning plaintively, the feminine now wholly uppermost. At last she neared Pedro’s mule, and he called:—
“Stand up, my dear, and grasp his tail.”
“Oh—God’s mercy!—he will kick!” she replied, in a shuddering wail.
“Nay, stew me! a fly would not venture to kick out here,” answered Pedro, with feeling. “Seize his tail!”
She did so, and with many a piteous whine and gasp, was at length across the abyss.